INTERVIEW: Rep. Darrell Issa on the Trump-Nixon commonalities and conflicts

Rep. Darrell Issa talks about the issues of our day — and explains why many aren't that different from the issues that plagued America in the 1970s,

At the 2025 Grand Strategy Summit for the Richard Nixon Foundation, the Washington Reporter’s editor-in-chief Matthew Foldi had the honor of headlining a keynote dinner with Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), who answered Foldi’s questions about the similarities between 1968 and 2025 in terms of politics and presidents, as well as about how the presidencies of the two Republicans compared and contrasted.

President Richard Nixon is often painted in a negative light because of unfaithful politics that led to his early departure from the presidency, yet he turned the tide in American politics for decades to come. Issa explained that “Nixon is greater today than when he left the White House prematurely, and he is appreciated in a way that many predicted he would never be appreciated.”

“Nixon, Reagan, Trump, they pulled us back from a wrong direction that was going to lead to the demise of this 250-year-old experiment in democracy, and each of them, in a significant way, gave us a new lease on or a new extension, that has gotten us to 250 and then at 300 they’ll say, we only got the 300 because George Washington did the right thing,” Issa said. “Abraham Lincoln stood for the right things. Nixon made differences that kept us out of World War Three for the next 100 years, but his work needed a boost during Reagan and needed another boost during Trump.”

Issa praised his fellow California Republican for the risks he took going into China that ultimately caused a rift between the Soviet Union and China, aiding in the collapse of the Soviet Union later on, and Nixon’s encouragement of a voluntary military that created a greater sense of patriotism in the United States that Issa said he felt first-hand as an enlistee in 1970.

“As a soldier who entered as an enlistee during when the draft was still around, I was a beneficiary, and watched him implement a volunteer army,” Issa reflected. “He made an army that was at each other’s throats because the draft was unpopular, because anti-war sentiment was high, and he understood that one of the ways to make our military strong and unite our country was to have an all voluntary military.”

Issa drew similarities in Nixon and President Donald Trump’s periods “in the wilderness,” when they lost elections that caused them to reflect on their past term and plan for the new term. After President Nixon lost the presidential election to John F. Kennedy and then the California governor’s race, “he reflected, he became prepared not just to win, but to be great,” Issa said.

Issa brought this same sentiment to Trump, noting that Trump’s second term benefitted from the former-turned-current president being able to watch his successor fail time after time. Issa praised both President Trump and President Nixon for their vision to go places no other president has been, Nixon to China and Trump to North Korea. Both presidents have taken risks that may not result in an immediate treaty, but they created peace through strength.

“The fact is, great people are not afraid to go where others say, ‘oh no we’ve got to pre-clear this, it’s got to be all perfect,’” Issa said, comparing Trump to Egypt’s Anwar al-Sadar. “Trump’s willing to go to a place and have a summit that doesn’t end up with what you want. He’s willing to do that because he believes that meetings are not something, meetings at a high level, are not something you hold out until everything’s been worked out and there’s nothing left to do.”

Issa also drew similarities in how President Trump and President Nixon made bold moves that resulted in peace. The bombing of Hanoi and the bombing of Tehran both decimated the enemy, but at the same time both leaders “[had] an olive branch out for lasting peace.” He stated that these are Nixonian values that have been replicated by President Ronald Reagan and now by President Trump. “[The bombing of Hanoi was a] bold move that said, ‘I will negotiate like we’re not at war, but I will fight the war until this negotiation then leads to a true peace of honor’… Those kinds of things are Nixonian. They’ve been replicated by Reagan, who believes strongly in peace through strength, which is now replicated by Trump.”

To Issa, the similarities between Trump and Nixon extend beyond the realm of politics and even make it to sports. “President Trump has had so many home runs, some of them will really be recognized after his four years are over, just as Richard Nixon, many of the things that caused him to be a historic figure, a great president, are only appreciated now really in hindsight,” he said.

Issa concluded by saying his home state of California “will rise again.” When asked about the impending vote on Prop 50, a gerrymandering scheme that would redraw congressional districts California to include almost no Republican districts, Issa stated that he hopes California will stop deciding to lose so they can rise and be a great state again.

“We are going to see it come back, because the core assets of California are so great that once they decide to stop losing, they can rise and win again,” Issa concluded.

Those in attendance told the Reporter that Issa’s remarks were incredibly timely. “Congressman Issa noted a clear connection between President Trump and Nixon that most people wouldn’t think about: their peace initiatives were met not with acceptance, but criticism,” Madison Hartley, a student attendee, said. “I think that’s because of their success. Nixon left office more than 50 years ago, but Issa observed that his clear-eyed view of the world still holds, and there’s reason to believe the same will be said of Trump in 50 years from now.”

Below is a transcript of Matthew Foldi’s interview with Rep. Darrell Issa, lightly edited for clarity.

Matthew Foldi:

It’s an honor to be here with so many people who are young and who are young at heart. I just want to say for people who are a little bit older, you may be a Republican because of Richard Nixon. If you’re a little bit younger, you might be a Republican because of Ronald Reagan. If you’re like me, you’re a Republican in part because of Darrell Issa. And these are three tremendous statesmen from the Golden State; we’ll end with a discussion of whether the state can be golden for much longer, but let’s lay out the scene out here: a GOP presidential nominee was recently defeated, discarded, discounted, and deplatformed, only for him to win a decisive victory that no one would have thought possible, elected by a nation in crisis that turned to him while the world was on fire, despite the fake news writing his political obituary every day. Obviously, I’m talking about Richard Nixon in 1968, but here we are in 2025 and some of those circumstances seem similar. Am I crazy?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

Yes. But on a separate note, I do need you to explain why you’re wearing one extra pin there.

Matthew Foldi:

This Nixon one is because of your scheduler, Sally Lindsay giving me her relative’s Nixon pin. I said, ‘isn’t this pin for women?’ She said, ‘yes, but Darrell won’t wear it, so you have to,’ and I have another Nixon pin from my friend Joe Ballard. Anyway — are the similarities between 1968 and 2024 overdone?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

No they’re not; there are a multitude of characters that you could say Trump is similar to. You could certainly say he’s similar to Teddy Roosevelt, not because of age, but because of boldness. Earlier, when they were asking, ‘what will Trump be remembered for 75 years from now, 100 years from now?’ One of the things that came to mind was he’s going to be remembered for a lot of different characters. But since we’re with the Nixon Foundation, quite frankly what was already said, and I think it’s going to be said a thousand more times, both in his first term and in this amazing third term…That was a joke, everyone. You do understand he had three terms, just like Richard Nixon? Richard Nixon had his term of eight years as Vice President, and then he had his term of eight years in the wilderness. First losing the governor’s race, and then being nowhere for so long, having lost his home state and nationally, and eight years later he came back. So the similarity of what happens when you’re out of power, having been at the center of power in Nixon’s case for eight years, and in Trump’s case for four, is you reflect in a way that others never get a chance to do. A second chance to look at presidency, a second chance to look at how it should be done. And for Nixon, particularly, a second chance at looking at, until Biden, the biggest group of mistakes that could be made with the Kennedy-Johnson administration, creating inflation, destroying a reputation of a military that was second to none. Well, Biden simply did it in less time.

Matthew Foldi:

Now to beat the horse of comparisons a little bit further, just last week, I interviewed you about Trump’s foreign policy in the Washington Reporter and in what I’m sure was a total coincidence, because we had planned to be here for a long time, you and I on stage, you told me that, ‘for my constituents, talking about Trump, they’re aware that not since Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon has there been a president who is able to focus on both fighting wars and making peace at the same time.’ So let’s start there. Let’s look at the world. We have Russia at war. The Middle East is still pretty much at war, and China is potentially on the warpath. This sounds like not a lot has changed since 1968. Is the Nixon-Trump strategy, though separated by 50 years, being validated for both its hands on approach and its rejection, of what you were just in essence, characterizing as the infamous ‘best and the brightest’?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

The comparison could be done in a hundred ways. The most recent one that I’d like us all to focus on is as Kissinger tried to bring to a close the Vietnam War via peace with honor. He found himself with his negotiators being unfaithful and untrue and disingenuous in their negotiations, and Nixon bombed the hell out of Hanoi again, even at the cost of B-52s that were lost. A bold move that said, ‘I will negotiate like we’re not at war, but I will fight a war until there’s negotiation that leads to a true peace of honor.’ That strategy is so similar to what the bombing of Tehran and surrounding areas, the taking out the nuclear site, both directly and with our ally Israel, while at the same time absolutely having an olive branch out for a lasting peace. Those kinds of things are Nixonian. They’ve been replicated by Reagan, who believes strongly in peace through strength. They’ve been replicated now by Trump but they’ve originated, really, with a man who fought in World War Two, lived through the Cold War, and understood that you couldn’t have peace by asking for it. And I think as young as Nixon was, both when he ran for president when he became president, he was more seasoned in the global world because of the beating of that anvil on him from the time he went into the military early in World War Two.

Matthew Foldi:

And I’m asking this now because I forgot to ask you this last week. We’re at the Nixon Foundation. But I will ask you about Teddy Roosevelt, who you just mentioned. He did receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was one of the first recipients as a Republican and as an American president. A lot of Republican presidents, Reagan, among them, Trump in the first term, have not received this. I’m just curious, you were kind of alluding to this. Do you think that that organization, not even looking at just recent history, but not giving Reagan the Nobel Peace Prize for defeating communism and giving it to Obama for being elected in 2008 too. Did Trump break it, or was it already broken?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

It clearly was sort of like, who gets to be the Man of the Year of the New York Times? Nobody knows. Because nobody reads it. The Nobel awards are being diminished, particularly the Peace Award, by the giving of it too easily to some and by denying it to those who most are entitled to it, who have earned it. And that is a problem. I’ve been working with a soldier who tried to get the Medal of Honor who earned it over 70 years ago, but it’s hard and he earned it. Royce Williams if you want to Wikipedia. It’s an amazing story, he’s over 100. The fact, though, is that award is always held so high, it’s so difficult, that those who receive it know that it has been earned, not only for them, but on behalf of the many who didn’t get it. That should be the basis for the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s okay to not give it haphazardly and one a year, and one when it’s earned. It’s actually things like Obama getting it because he’s him, that diminishes something so much so that Trump kind of muses about what he would do if he was actually offered it, because he has earned it. He’s earned it the way that they should, in fact, make a change that I don’t think they’re going to make. This year’s award, the awardee accepted it on behalf of the president, and that tells you that those who truly care about peace are, in fact, aware of what the President has done. By the way, that is one of the greatest examples of peace I’ve ever seen properly instrumented. There are pieces of those boats floating in the water, and that’s the kind of peace sometimes you have to have against people who will try to murder so many people through drugs.

Matthew Foldi:

I will tell you why I’m particularly appreciative of the Trump foreign policy peace through strength doctrine, because I was stranded in Israel and became a political wartime refugee, needing to get evacuated through Jordan. I was on the first private plane out of the Middle East during Israel’s 12 day war, and then I was back safely in America when we bombed the crap out of the Iranian nuclear facilities. And I think you’re totally right. It’s such a vindication. And Trump echoed that this week. He said there would have been no momentous, joyous celebration of the exchange, not the release of the hostages who’ve been starving in tunnels for two years, but the exchange of them in exchange for brutal Palestinian monsters. But let’s shift to another foreign policy failure that you focused a lot on, which is the Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden’s administration famously told us that there would be no images a la Saigon in 1975 of people being evacuated off of rooftops. Well, we all know what we saw in 2021; we saw people falling out of airplanes. Your hearings with Eric Holder and the Obama crew are one of the reasons why I and a lot of my friends are excited to be Republicans, and you’ve been one of the most effective watchdogs on government malfeasance, and one of the things that you’ve been focusing on is even though this withdrawal, and this debacle happened four years ago, we’re dealing with consequences. And one of the things you said last week in our interview was you don’t think we can avoid that again, necessarily. I’m curious, from a domestic standpoint, if, in the four years since Afghanistan and in the five decades since Vietnam, do you think the American people learned from these mistakes, at least temporarily, because they did dramatically alter the course of, ultimately, human history by electing, eventually Reagan and Trump, after Vietnam and Afghanistan?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

I’ll sort of repeat, in a sense but a different way of what I said last week. The Nixon lessons to the world have been accepted by some and ignored by others. Presidents, unfortunately, choose who they want to mimic. When an administration takes a piece of the Great Society or a piece of the New Deal and leaves off the rest of the presidency, they end up with an inferior presidency, because even though I appreciate each of those characters for their liberalism, FDR understood there was a war coming. He understood that our industrial base was not ready for it. He understood that, in fact, preparation for war was necessary. Joe Biden, for four years, ignored that. So he ignored Nixon’s lessons, as he was trying to be known as the second FDR, but he was missing some of the most important parts of the very leader that he wanted to mimic. When you look at Richard Nixon, obviously I think there are great lessons to be learned, but you also have to look at Richard Nixon, who left us, quite frankly, with the basis for cleaner air and cleaner water. He left us with concepts that if properly instrumented were important to society. He also did something that people misunderstand: he didn’t take for granted our industrial base. He didn’t take for granted our military capability. As a matter of fact, as a soldier who entered as an enlistee during when the draft was still around, I was a beneficiary, and watched him implement an all volunteer army. He made an army that was at each other’s throats because the draft was unpopular, because anti-war sentiment was high, and he understood that one of the ways to make our military strong and unite our country was to have an all voluntary military, so that, in fact, in time of war, you would draft, but in time of peace, you wouldn’t say, ‘oh my goodness they’re taking our children to die.’ No, patriots are signing up. And so every war we’ve had where people have rallied behind our troops since Vietnam, maybe not behind our president, but behind our troops, is the direct result of a change that Richard Nixon put in, that is lasting. We support our troops even when we argue over the conduct of a war, and that’s because we are an all voluntary force. We are a force of people that Richard Nixon said, patriots will come if you pay them enough that they don’t have to leave the service. Patriots are there. He’s proven it. Now his legacy for more than half a century is that, in fact, we are a united nation behind our military. Now we have to give our military back, something that Donald Trump will be known for, and it’ll be known, perhaps more than all the things that we’re thinking about him being known for today. Today, we have the ability to build the finest weapons in the world. We just can’t build enough of them to actually go to a full war. China has an industrial base that allows them to build an almost as good set of weapons, but so many more of them that they intend on trampling us. Re-industrializing us and in partnership with countries like Australia, Britain, the Five Eyes and others and NATO means that we will have the surge capability, the industrial capability, back in our control. But those activities today are about making something like this that was actually made in America again. But those factories will be the very factories that will pivot if they’re needed in time of war. That is something that Nixon didn’t have to deal with, he dealt with the human element. Trump is dealing with the support for those human beings who as patriots, will come and what we need to be able to give them is not just the rifle we made last year and not just a wooden rifle we can make this year, but the real weapons that allow them to keep us out of war, by our enemy knowing we can surge if necessary.

Matthew Foldi:

I was thinking about this in the same way that Tom Brady and I have both thrown a football and between the two of us we have seven Super Bowl rings. You and I and Trump and Nixon have all run for office now, the difference is that I have not won on a federal level, and you won a lot of times. Trump won twice, Nixon won endless times. But all three of you spent some time in the wilderness and setting Trump and Nixon aside, which might be controversial for this setting, what did you learn from your Issa in the wilderness time? That was briefer than their extent in the wilderness. But what did you learn about both yourself and the American political system and then feel free to kind of extrapolate what you think they learned from?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

What we have in common, is that Trump has lost once, Nixon’s lost twice, and I kind of lost twice too. I lost a Senate race, and that set me up to win a House race and a dozen after that. But then I went to the Trump administration, and Bob Menendez kept me from being confirmed, so I kind of lost a second time for two years. Every time you have time to reflect, as Nixon had, by the way he had time to reflect when he campaigned all over for people at all levels, federal, state and local, as he gave back, but as he reflected, he became prepared not just to win, but to be greater. I won’t say that I’m greater, but I’ll skip right to President Trump. President Trump is the president he is because, in fact, he had four years and the pain of losing, and that really matters. Now he’s also going to be very Reagan-esque, because, as Reagan had Jimmy Carter to follow, let’s face it, Trump had Biden to follow.

Matthew Foldi:

To drill back in, then on Trump and Nixon and to kind of make this instead of Frost/Nixon this is Foldi/Issa and this is the much awaited sequel that no one asked for. I’m curious to finish this sentence in as short a way as possible, which for you, probably takes the rest of the time here. But only Nixon could go to China. That’s a well established reality; his decades as an anti-Communist gave him that credibility. Only Trump could go to what?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

I’m gonna have to go way back. North Korea, even though it was only a few feet into North Korea and it’s not that far from China. The fact is, Trump is a person who will go anywhere fearlessly, and he’s the Anwar Sadat of our country. The fact is, great people are not afraid to go where others say, ‘oh no we’ve got to pre-clear this it’s got to be all perfect.’ Trump’s willing to go to place and have a summit that doesn’t end up with what you want. He’s willing to do that because he believes that meetings are not something, meetings at a high level, are not something you hold out until everything’s been worked out and there’s nothing left to do. Nixon, I think in many ways, knew that there was a great risk in going to China, and ultimately the reward was the division that occurred, the incredible schism that happened between China and the Soviet Union that ultimately led to the Soviet Union’s collapse. The Soviet Union would not have collapsed under Reagan alone, if, in fact, there had not been a China policy that pulled them away. When Nixon went to China, he was beginning that process. He was not assuring it at that moment, but he believed in it, and it worked. And quite candidly, Nixon made Reagan, Reagan because of it.

Matthew Foldi:

What then, is the equivalent then of Trump going to North Korea? When you think about the big picture, we’ve had a couple of years of hindsight for that. You talked about splitting China and the Soviets. Do we have enough time to know what that North Korea schism could have created?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

No. If you get 50% on a test in college, you flunk. You only have to get a little over 0.250 in baseball, and you’re in the Hall of Fame. The fact is, President Trump is not batting 0.100, he’s not batting 0.500 but he’s getting up and swinging like Babe Ruth for the fence every time. So what do we get out of North Korea? We get the recognition that he’ll go places others won’t go. He’ll do what others won’t do, just as Nixon. Nixon did not do well in South America. For those who remember the car nearly being turned over. He was not afraid to go, and Eisenhower was not afraid to send him everywhere. Eisenhower didn’t go, but he said, yes. Going where others don’t go, and being fearless and swinging for the bleachers might get you appropriately into the Hall of Fame and it’s not because you’ve bat 1.000 or 0.500, it’s because those home runs add up, and President Trump has had so many home runs, some of them will really be recognized after his four years are over, just as Richard Nixon, many of the things that caused him to be a historic figure, a great president, are only appreciated now really in hindsight, when you can say, how did he set up the world for this? How did he set up America for that? And quite candidly, how did he allow for the principles that were used by Reagan and that are being used by Trump? Just as Nixon is greater today than when he left the White House prematurely, and he is appreciated in a way that many predicted he would never be appreciated. We’re going to have many of the same things with Trump. People are going to say, ‘but he struck out here. He struck out there.’ Yeah, but he’s got a lot of balls to disappear into the bleachers.

Matthew Foldi:

Those home runs will get you into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but they won’t get you a Nobel Peace Prize. And one of the things that Babe Ruth is most famous for doing, of course, is pointing where he’s going to hit the ball and Trump kind of does that with foreign policy, where he says, ‘I’m going to North Korea, hey we’re going to do this, hey, Rocket Man, hey, all of this.’ He has a very non-traditional style of diplomacy. Is your estimation that you’d rather have a home run hitter than something else?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

Fortunately, the President has built and attracted particularly now in the second term, although he did extremely well his first term. He’s attracted some great people who can hit base hits. His Trade Representatives, his various secretaries, including in his first term, in my opinion, Pompeo was, in fact, a great Secretary of State and did a great job during that time. Marco Rubio is clearly doing a phenomenal job. It’s the team that sets up the home runs, because it’s that fourth batter that you put up who’s already got one of those people on base. So yes, even his own son in law represents one of those base hitters, because things like the Abraham Accords didn’t happen just because of Jared, but they happened because he set up it because he did the work, because he established relationships, because the president dispatched both official and somewhat semi-official people to do the job of setting it up that allowed him to point and say that’s where we’re going to end up. We’re going to end up in Jerusalem, in that building with the plaque that could have been there decades earlier, that was promised by every president, he said, we’re going to do it. And he did. And he did it at an amazing price. For those who haven’t been to our embassy in Jerusalem it was our consulate for years. All he did was move one plaque over, so nobody ever did an embassy on such a budget deal.

Matthew Foldi:

Let’s look domestically, Trump and Nixon are both obviously well known for their push for law and order and also the protests against it. I actually thought as I was looking at some of the No Kings protests this weekend, some of the same people protesting Nixon may have actually been on the streets of America protesting Trump. Why do you think that for them, that was such an important part as they were representing the silent majority?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

Look, this is an audience filled with the silent majority, filled with the people who go about their lives, who contribute to the churches, contribute to foundations, contribute to society, and, in fact, for the most part, stay off the streets. Stay out of the protests, stay out of the limelight. But what they want is a set of common sense values. Look, you ask yourself, defunding the police. Why do we fund the police? Because it is the most effective way to have safety and security, because the alternative is we all get a bunch of guns and hope that we beat the guys that are trying to rip us off. We formed these institutions long before even I was born, and we formed them because they’re efficient and effective and they make us safer. For the same reason as we do so many other things in society, conventional values that work should not be discarded, and one party in this town has backed discarding conventional values that have worked, and then they’re shocked when, oh my goodness, crime is rising. Drugs are out of control. Letting 10 million people into the country without knowing who they are could have adverse side effects, and yes, defunding or not supporting the police and decriminalizing crimes will lead to all of us saying, ‘could you please open this plastic container so I can get my razor blade?’ Half of the success of Amazon is that it’s no longer fun to go to the drugstore. The reality is these conventional values Nixon understood. Nixon was, in fact, old before his time, mature his whole life, and a conventionalist in every sense. And you know what those values are, the values that normally make for a very successful president? Even the so-called liberal presidents, andI said FDR earlier, but I could have said, Truman, these people were very conservative in some areas. The problem with liberalism today is they’re not picking one liberal thing that’ll probably fail, and the rest at least the country can afford that failure. They’re picking everything in the way of liberalism, and it’s one of the reasons that there is a majority, and many of them are former Democrats and former people who voted for Democrats, who are rejecting the idea that you turn the world upside down and you throw everything out. They’re going, ‘I’m okay with you on this, but for God’s sake, could you at least make sure I can afford my electricity, and that my health care system isn’t destroyed? And by the way, that I can safely go somewhere, including to a shopping center?’

Matthew Foldi:

You’re a man of many patents, I don’t think one of them is a time machine, but let’s briefly jump just a little bit forward 50 years from now, to 2075, just a couple years. This will be 100 years since 1975 at that point, what do you think your successor or my successor, will be talking about as the two legacies of Trump and of Nixon?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

They’re going to be talking about both of them, in a sense, as figures that I would characterize as the little Dutch boy with his fingers in the dike. That each of a group of presidents in their own way, Nixon, Reagan, Trump, they pulled us back from a wrong direction that was going to lead to the demise of this 250 year old experiment in democracy, and each of them, in a significant way, gave us a new lease on or a new extension, that has gotten us to 250 and then at 300 they’ll say, we only got the 300 because George Washington did the right thing. Abraham Lincoln stood for the right things. Nixon made differences that kept us out of World War Three for the next 100 years, but his work needed a boost during Reagan and needed another boost during Trump. Those are going to be the milestones and the clarity of 50 years back is the reason that we can appreciate presidents that I might not have voted for at the time, ones that had some things I didn’t agree with. However they, in their own way, are recognized today. I’ve read at least one book on every president. Dewey, I didn’t get to read because no matter what they covered it’s, fake news anyway. But you can find something in every president. The difference with Nixon, and I think it’ll be the difference with Trump is you’re going to find a lot of things.

Matthew Foldi:

Now I’m going to let you go with one more question. You are a famous optimist. You described yourself as such on our favorite Ruthless Podcast; both Trump and Nixon completed some of the greatest comebacks of their times. We’ve already talked about that. We talked about the wilderness. You and Nixon are both California Republicans. Can California complete a comeback of its own?

Rep. Darrell Issa:

California will rise again. But remember, the South rose again. And the south rose again in the sense that they were not the economic giant that they had been for many years. They, in fact, were the place that poor people were. Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas, even Tennessee. These are hot spots today. You go to Nashville. You go, wow. And that is now a Republican stronghold of Tennessee. There are changes and shifts in this wonderful experiment in democracy that happened because states do get it wrong, and then later they get it right because they’re tired of losing to the other states. California was a winner for 100 years and more, but California has been going the wrong way for quite a while. And as my dad said to me on more than one occasion, ‘son, if you keep going in the wrong way, the wrong direction, you know you’re going to get there.’ I have changed my ways some, but California is still going in the wrong direction in some ways. But people are beginning to bottom out. People are beginning to make changes. Do I think that overnight we can change? No. As a matter of fact, Prop 50, which is going to be voted on in a few days, currently has the majority of Californians thinking that it’s okay to vote Republicans completely off the map through gerrymandering. They are a growing number. And so can we come back and have a working majority that thinks the way most of us, or all of us in this room do? We can, but just as it took a while to make Tennessee and Texas and Florida the envy of well, it’s not the envy of California, it’s where we’re all going, I believe that we are going to see it come back, because the core assets of California are so great that once they decide to stop losing, they can rise and win again quickly.

Matthew Foldi:

Congressman Issa, thanks as always for your wisdom.